The third training in the list is wisdom, in this case a very special kind of wisdom that I will often call “ultimate” or “fundamental” wisdom. This may also be rendered as “understanding” or “insight.” The whole trick to this training is to understand the truth of the sensations that make up our present experience. The great mystics from all traditions have reported that there is something remarkable and even enlightening about our ordinary experiences if we take the time to look into them very carefully. Those that undertake training in wisdom have decided to do the experiment and see for themselves if this is true or if those old dead dudes were just making it all up.

Obviously, the first assumption that must be made is that there is some understanding that is completely beyond any ordinary understanding, even beyond the altered states of consciousness that can be attained if we train in concentration. The next assumption is that there are specific practices that can lead to that understanding if we simply do them. The third and perhaps most vital assumption is that we can do them and be successful.

The assumption that is rarely stated explicitly but often implied is that we must be willing to stay on a sensate level, at the level of the actual sensations that make up experiences, if we wish to gain the insights that are promised by the mystics. The corollary of this assumption is that we must be willing to set aside periods of time during which we abandon the ordinary way of working in the world that is called training in morality and even the unusual way of working with altered states of consciousness that is called training in concentration. We assume that the teachings on wisdom point to universal truths, truths that can be perceived in all types of experience without exception. We assume that if we can simply know our sensate experience clearly enough, then we will come to understand for ourselves.

The primary agenda for doing insight practices is to increase our perceptual abilities so that the truths mentioned by the great mystics become obvious to us. Thus, rather than caring what we think, say or do, or caring about what altered state of consciousness we are in, when training in wisdom we actively work simply to increase the speed, precision, consistency and inclusiveness of our experience of all the quick little sensations that make up our experience, whatever and however they may be.

Thus, the essential formal insight meditation instructions are: find a place where the distractions are tolerable, pick a stable and sustainable posture, and for a defined period of time notice every single sensation that makes up your reality as best you can. Just as with concentration practices, more time and more diligent practice pays off. These simple instructions can easily seem overwhelming, vague or strangely trivial to many people, and so I am going to spend a lot of time laying out a large number of empowering concepts and more structured practices that have helped countless practitioners over thousands of years to follow these basic instructions.

While the Three Trainings all contain some similar elements, there are some important contrasts that must be made between them. The gold standard for training in morality is how kind and compassionate our intentions are and how well we lead a useful and moral life. The gold standard for training in concentration practices is how quickly we can enter into highly altered states of consciousness, how long we can stay in them, and how refined, complete and stable we can make those states. The gold standard for insight practices is that we can quickly and consistently see the true nature of the numerous quick sensations that make up our whole reality, regardless of what those sensations are, allowing us to cut to a level of understanding that goes utterly beyond specific conditions.

It is absolutely vital that the differences between these gold standards be understood. Considered this way, these gold standards do not overlap and may even seem to contradict one another. This is a very practical assumption. As these differences seem to be extremely difficult to explain clearly, I will make this basic point again and again throughout this book.

So, having gained enough morality to be temporarily free of excessive negative mind states and enough concentration to steady the mind somewhat, look into the bare truth of the sensations of this moment. This is called insight meditation and other names, and it is designed to produce wisdom.

Sounds simple, and while it is, it also isn't. There are many types of insight that we may derive from experiencing the world. Usually, we might think of training in wisdom as having to do with relative issues like how to live our lives. In this sense, one might just try to be wiser. Perhaps we could skillfully reflect on something that went badly and see if perhaps in the future some wisdom gained from that experience might change the way we live our life. This is an ordinary form of wisdom, and so the insights we derive from such reflections and observations are insights into the ordinary world.

On the other hand, these sorts of reflections can only take us so far, and to really get what the Buddha was talking about, we need to go far beyond these conventional definitions of wisdom and attain to ultimate insights by doing insight practices. Many people try to make insight practices into an exercise that will produce both insights into the ordinary world and also ultimate insights. I have come to the conclusion that we should not count on ultimate teachings to illuminate our relative issues or vice versa, and so I feel that it is extremely important to keep the relative and ultimate wisdom teachings separate. Failure to do so causes endless problems and makes progress on either front more difficult rather than easier. Thus, I will revisit this topic again and again throughout this book, doing my best to clearly differentiate those practices that produce ordinary wisdom from those practices that fall within the third training and lead to ultimate realizations that are independent of our relative insights.

There are many wisdom traditions and many styles of insight practices. I will lay out a number of them explicitly and hint at many others in the chapters that follow. When choosing an insight tradition, I would suggest you look for a tradition that is tried and true, meaning that is either very old and well-tested, or at least can, in modern times, demonstrate that it consistently leads to unshakable realizations. I can verify that the specific practices I will present lead to the effects I promise if they are applied as recommended. Even better, you should verify this for yourself.

A brief note of caution here: occasionally, when people begin to really get into spirituality, they may get a bit fascinated with it and may forget some of the useful relative wisdom they have learned from before. Caught up in “ultimate wisdom” and their “spiritual quest,” they can sometimes abandon conventional wisdom and other aspects of their “former life” to a degree that may not be very wise. They falsely imagine that by training in insight they are also mastering or transcending the first training, that of living in the ordinary world. We awaken to the actual truth of our life in all of its conventional aspects by definition, so make sure that yours is a life you will want to wake up to.

In summary, by seeing deeply into the truth of our own experience, profound and beneficial transformations of consciousness are definitely possible. You guessed it, we’re talking about enlightenment, The Big E, awakening, freedom, Nirvana, the unconditioned, and all of that. The arising of this understanding is the primary focus of this book. There are actually lots of interesting insights that typically occur even before awakening. Again, there are no magic formulae for producing ultimate insights, except for the Three Characteristics...

MCTB The Three Characteristics